Understanding the Problem

Picture this: You’re a leader in an organization, perusing financial and safety reports compiled by managers tasked to boost sales, cut costs, and grow safety and quality. In one report, you see exactly the opposite happening. So what do you do?

You call that manager, have him or her explain why this is happening and he or she insists: “There’s nothing to worry about. That has happened before, it was taken care of and this time it won’t be any different.” You hand out targets and a deadline and ask to stay updated. Case closed.

A great lean leader takes a different path early on in this process. The manager is called in, but the first priority is understanding every messy detail of the problem and making sure he or she does as well. Per the Merriam-Webster dictionary, a problem is “a question raised for inquiry, consideration, or solution.” The word “solution” isn’t last by accident.

While many of us are equipped to be “firefighters” and immediately jump to solutions, that’s tantamount to giving fever-suppressing paracetamol to a hospital patient. The symptom is resolved but the underlying cause is just waiting to come back.

First, we must recognize the type of problem at hand.

Author John Shook in his book Managing to Learn defines two types of problems:

John Shook's Problem Types

It is important to understand that the presenting problem e.g. increase costs, a safety hazard, decreasing sales in some way relates to the way work is designed or being done.